Leisure activities are an essential category of occupations that we engage in throughout our daily lives. Leisure activities are intrinsically motivated, rather than done out of obligation. We decide to devote our time, energy, and money to these activities because we enjoy them in and of themselves.
This is one of the reasons why opportunities to explore leisure occupations is so important. Leisure exploration allows us to try different hobbies, sports, and arts to find those that bring out our strengths, challenge us, and illicit joy.
For occupational therapists, it's essential to understand the importance of leisure occupations to clients. Occupational therapists work with clients to facilitate re-engagement in their leisure activities after illness, injury, or disability has interrupted the regular rhythm of life. This could mean focusing on the client's skills to improve their performance and/or adapting the occupation to better match the client's abilities. When the client's level of functioning prevents them from engaging in their leisure pursuit all together, an OT can assist the client in exploring new leisure activities that match their strengths and interests.
Leisure occupations can also provide enjoyable intervention opportunities to build skills that translate to other key areas such as functional mobility or self-care. Occupational therapists are masters at finding creative ways to use preferred occupations to work on therapy goals. Work on fine motor skills and bilateral coordination by practicing magic tricks. Improve gross motor coordination, trunk strength, and balance with yoga or tai chi. Gardening. Cooking. Sewing. Card games. Sports. Instruments. Almost any leisure activity can be therapeutic with the help of an OT's clinical reasoning skills!
REFERENCES
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2014). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process. American Journal of OccupationalTherapy, 68(Suppl. 1), S1–S48. http://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2014.682006
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